For years, Americans have been told that diversity and inclusion initiatives are harmless, even virtuous, no matter where they are applied. Former White House lawyer Daniel Huff is calling that bluff, and he is doing it in one of the few places where failure is not theoretical. It is 35,000 feet in the air.
In a recent analysis published in the New York Post, Huff argued that President Trump was absolutely right to roll back diversity driven policies at the Federal Aviation Administration. His reasoning was blunt and deeply uncomfortable for the corporate class. When airlines prioritize demographic targets over merit, passengers pay the price.
Huff pointed to a sobering statistic. Female and minority pilots, who make up roughly 10 percent of the pilot workforce, were responsible for four out of eight pilot error crashes since 2000. That is half of such crashes attributed to a group that represents a fraction of the total pool. Huff acknowledged the limited sample size but made a point the diversity crowd usually embraces in other contexts. When outcomes are rare but catastrophic, patterns matter.
“It’s not that women and minorities are inherently unable to fly planes,” Huff wrote. “But in practice, pressure for affirmative action too often leads airlines to lower their standards to meet quotas.” That sentence alone explains why this conversation is treated as radioactive.
Huff cited the 2019 Atlas Air Flight 3591 as a case study. Pilot Conrad Aska panicked after initiating a go around and flew the aircraft into the ground. According to Huff, warning signs were present during training. Simulator sessions showed he became extremely flustered and could not respond appropriately under pressure. Those are exactly the traits airline training is supposed to screen out, unless other priorities intervene.
Even worse, Huff noted that not every diversity driven safety failure ends in a headline. Training shortcomings happen behind closed doors. Near misses go unreported. Crashes get blamed on mechanical issues, staffing shortages, or other politically convenient explanations. The public sees the sanitized version, not the internal compromises.
Despite President Trump’s push for merit based hiring across aviation, major airlines continue doubling down. Delta Air Lines executives have openly said diversity is “critical” to their business. United Airlines wants half of its pilot graduates to be women or minorities. Southwest Airlines still proudly advertises its commitment to a “diverse and inclusive workforce.”
Huff’s conclusion was not complicated. Airlines have a moral duty to put passenger safety first. Flying is not a social experiment. It is a profession where competence, judgment, and calm under pressure are non negotiable.
If airline executives lack the courage to abandon quotas, Huff argued the administration must step in and enforce merit first hiring before the next crash makes the argument for them. Passengers do not board planes hoping to advance social goals. They board expecting to land alive.
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